A Review of the Routes Year

Richard Maslen December 15, 2011

As we reach the last few weeks of 2011 and with just three issues of The HUB still remaining for this year, now is a good time to look back on the Routes year and remember some of the challenges and developments within the business. David Stroud, Executive Vice President, UBM Aviation Routes, outlines his experiences from the past 12 months...

2011 threw up a number of challenges for us, some of them created by us some of them thrown at us. We began the year with two events which took place on exactly the same dates but in different parts of the world with the 4th Routes Americas held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and a new event called Routes Tourism Mediterranean held in Antalya, Turkey and designed for tour operators and airports to meet face-to-face.

Americas

This year's Routes Americas was the fourth edition and proved to be very successful and spectacular thanks to the kind hospitality of our hosts Aerodom, managers of five airports within the Dominican Republic. Routes Americas is positioned to unite the whole American continent and help create air services within all regions, and we have definitely secured a critical mass of representation from The North, South, Central and Caribbean regions.

Next year’s 2012 event will be hosted by Nassau Airport in the Bahamas, at the Atlantis resort. Nassau is very accessible for the US market and with new air links provided by Copa Airlines into Panama, within easy reach of South America. We are expecting high growth again next year, in fact we currently have over 45 airlines already registered for the event.

The 2011 Routes Americas event finished with Routes being presented with a special award from the Dominican Republic Government for our contribution to the economic development of their country which we were delighted to receive and illustrates the importance bringing airlines and airports together to directly influence air services and positively contribute to the economy of a region.

Tourism

Our first new event of the year was Routes Tourism Mediterranean in Antalya, Turkey. It was the first time we organised a special Routes event focusing on the tourism sector and the promotion of a specific destination. It was also the first time we have run two events simultaneously which was definitely a challenge but one that the team rose to!

Over 200 delegates attended from airlines, tour operators, destination suppliers, and tourism authorities. During the event we held a number of Ministerial Tourism Briefings, helping the market understand the latest developments in Croatia, Greece, and Turkey. The event has really helped us promote the intrinsic connection between tourism and aviation and as a result we expect to be able to attract more tourism content to our established programme of Routes events.

Asia

At the 9th Routes Asia in Incheon, South Korea, we were delighted by the support from within the Asia Pacific region, and globally, for an event that had been organised against a backdrop of political difficulties between North and South Korea and of course the earthquake, tsunami and tragedy affecting Japan. It was especially pleasing that representatives from Narita airport and All Nippon Airways (ANA) were still able to attend the event, which at one point may not have taken place due to the circumstances outlined above. However, due to the support of our excellent host, Incheon International Airport Corporation, and after consultation with our delegates and partners, the event took place.

Routes Asia commenced with a Strategy Forum, including a keynote address from Azran Osman-Rani, CEO, Air Asia X and in addition to the one-to-one meetings between airports and airlines the event included airline briefings from Thai International Airways (subsequently agreeing a three times weekly flight with Brussels Airport as a direct result of the briefing), Firefly, Bangkok Airways and Hainan Airlines.

One of the highlights of the event was the Gala Dinner, which included a fashion show, musical theatre songs and a spectacular drumming and dance act. The evening also included the Asia region airport marketing awards, the overall winner for the region being Abu Dhabi Airport.

Next year Routes Asia moves to Chengdu in China, home of the Panda!

Europe

The 6th Routes Europe took place in the exclusive Forte Village resort in Cagliari, Sardinia normally frequented by the rich and famous and also home to Chelsea Football Club’s winter training facility. This year's event was hosted by Cagliari Airport and was attended by over 700 hundred delegates representing the airports and airlines of Europe. This event also played host to the 2nd Routes Advisory Panel which allowed us to gauge direct feedback from a cross section of senior delegates from airlines, airports and tourism boards. A very busy three days saw delegates participate in a full programme of one-to-one meetings, airline briefings and networking events. In addition, being in a holiday village resort, delegates were able to experience a varied and often energetic social programme including tennis, bowling, karting and a highly competitive football competition.

A major development at Routes events has been the expansion of airline briefings. This year's briefing programme including sessions from Ryanair and easyJet who briefed airports on their forward plans and what airports need to do in order to secure more air routes from these carriers. A key highlight was the briefing from AirAsia X, who had travelled to Europe to announce the launch of a new aircraft tender bid process to be undertaken exclusively within the 'Route Exchange' section of the Routes website.

Routes Europe was brought to a close with a handover ceremony to Tallinn Airport, the host of next year's event. Whilst the weather may not be as hot in Estonia, we are certain the hospitality for delegates will be just as warm.

Africa

The first week of July saw our final Routes Regional event take place in Bamako, Mali. Routes Africa is our smallest event but is showing real potential as a key platform to shape the development of air services across the African continent. Developing effective air connectivity within Africa is a difficult challenge as the continent has yet to fully liberalise and open its skies. Furthermore quality airport infrastructure is in short supply and there are a limited number of home based carriers who are in a position to expand the market. Nonetheless, in Mali there was a great sense of optimism amongst delegates that Africa is at last becoming a land of opportunity with a strengthening economic backdrop for airline and airport growth.

At this year's event we organised a Routes Africa Strategy Forum, which brought together a number of senior figures across the industry to discuss how air access can be improved. These included Ali Tounsi - Secretary General of ACI Africa, and Dr Elijah Chingosho - Secretary General & CEO of AFRAA.

ASM provided a route development workshop for all delegates which was really well received, and there were Route Exchange briefings from Air France, South African Airways and Arik Air.

CIS

Our Routes CIS event did not take place this year as planned, the terrorist attacks at Domodedevo Airport in Moscow earlier this year meant that our host – Rostov on Don Airport in Russia – needed to divert budgets and management effort to improving security measures at the airport in light of what had happened in the capital. However, the team continued to work to secure our 2012 host which was confirmed as Ekaterinburg Koltsovo International Airport at World Routes in Berlin this October.

World

When you head out to World Routes you never quite know whether all the detailed preparation and planning that has taken place over the previous three years since we selected the host city will lead to an ok event or to something special. Without doubt this year's world event was something very special, one of the best events we've ever had.

Being back in Europe, the heartland of the event, for the first time in three years, we knew that the attendance would be strong but perhaps didn't expect airlines and airports to be registering right up to the day before the event opened. Over 2,700 attendees, including nearly 550 airline delegates from over 300 airlines were there. Around 1,100 attendees from airports, over 200 tourism and economic development agencies, as well as industry suppliers and press and over 100 exhibition stands, made up the largest and most senior attendance to date.

World Routes began on Saturday with a Hosted Airline Programme, City Tours, Golf tournament and Saturday evening reception sponsored by Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen Airport. Sunday kicked off with the World Route Development Strategy Summit, our conference organised in association with ICAO and The World Bank. The conference opened in controversy as Prashant Sukel - Joint Secretary of the Indian Ministry of Civil Aviation announced the 25 leading countries have got together to declare a retaliation against the EU's Emissions Trading System. As for Routes itself, the Strategy Summit brought together leaders from a complete cross section of the aviation industry sectors, who were united in their support from removing taxes from aviation.

The doors to World Routes itself formally opened at lunchtime on Sunday, delegates were then able to receive their final diaries and arrange extra meetings. The exhibition halls swung into life, with the bar being raised with regard to stand design, the entertainment and of course the hospitality available. Sunday evening culminated with a Welcome Reception provided by our Hosts for the event, Berlin Brandenburg Airport.

On Monday and Tuesday the core business of Routes took place, with what we estimate to be in the region of 15,000 meetings taking place over the two days. In addition we really expanded our 'Route Exchange' briefings programme with 23 airlines providing insight on their plans for the airport delegates.

Next year we'll use bigger facilities as for many of the briefings delegates were queuing to get access. We also developed our 'Routes Talks' programme with 12 Ministerial Tourism briefings, a number of air Cargo talks and a programme of speakers sharing insight into Social Media and how it can be applied to the route development field. We also introduced a smartphone app which was well received by delegates and we hope to develop this further for 2012 and roll it out to all our events next year.

The Gala evening on Monday was truly spectacular, held in a huge marquee sited on the apron of the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport. The evening coincided with Re-Unification Day in Germany, and for the Capital City, the new airport is a real symbol of re-unification and will provide Berlin with a new future of air accessibility. We also held our annual World Routes Awards, introducing categories for airlines and tourist authorities for the first time and for the second year running a judging panel made up of the airline network planning community. The big winners this year were; Abu Dhabi, Budapest, Los Angeles, Ghana Airports, Malta Tourism and AirAsia X.

On the Tuesday of the event we handed over the baton to Abu Dhabi where World Routes 2012 will be held. It will be the first time we have returned to a Host City: Routes was held in Abu Dhabi in 1996 when the event was very much in its infancy. Already the signs are strong that in 2012 World Routes will be even bigger and better and with the Abu Dhabi team focused on pulling out all the stops to give attending delegates a once in a lifetime experience in their great city.

In Berlin we also announced a number of future events including Routes CIS in 2012 (Ekaterinburg), Routes Americas (Cartagena) and Routes Asia (Mumbai) in 2013 and World Routes (Chicago) in 2014 and following the event Routes Europe (Budapest) in 2013 was aslo confirmed.

Other Business

In terms of Routesonline we continue to develop the website to ensure we provide the very best platform for the route development community to use all year round. We refreshed our homepage and we also enhanced our airline and airport profile areas on the site so our delegates can access all the route development information they require about the industry together with continuing their networking online. In 2012 we will continue to develop the site further so do watch this space!

After the successful AirAsia X RFP, earlier in the year we were also pleased to have agreed our second RFP process through 'Route Exchange' with Scoot, the new medium- and long-haul, low-cost division of Singapore Airlines (SIA).

Finally, although not a Routes event, many of the team were involved in the recent Invest & Manage event that took place in London last week. We have received excellent feedback about this event and expect it to be an annual event in the future (you can read more about the event here).

All in all I would like to thank the route development community for supporting our events this year, we hope that each year we will continue to develop and grow together in order to ensure our business is responding directly to the needs of the industry.